THE FLOWER SYMBOLISTS 37 



lands is the most careful and just, and each flower 

 was painted also with such exquisite minute- 

 ness that there is no possibility of mistaking 

 the variety. ItaHan symbolism was always 

 apt to be superficial, and after the fifteenth 

 century often became confused with decoration. 

 Also the Italians painted flowers carelessly, and 

 the lesser kinds, those in the foreground of an 

 Adoration, for instance, are frequently impossible 

 to identify. In Germany symbolism is at times 

 extravagant and far-fetched though always 

 interesting. In Spain it is poor and almost 

 entirely borrowed. A modern writer ' observes 

 of Spanish art that it is material, brutal, Roman, 

 having, from its geographical position, escaped 

 the idealism of Greek or the mysticism of Celtic 

 influences ; and the same cause may also explain 

 the prosaicness of its symbolism. 



The English love of flowers, very noticeable 

 in early verse, found pictorial expression chiefly 

 in the work of the miniaturists and in the ' flower 

 work ' details of architecture. The miniatures 

 executed by monks usually pay attention to the 

 symbolical value of each blossom, but the carved 



' C. Marriott. 



